U.S.

Ferguson, Missouri.

I practice an unpopular habit these days, I try not to speak till I know.

So to get a grasp on what this sleepy little town is in today’s media, I wanted to get a picture of what it was before it made national headlines.

I feel perspective give us an idea of how we got here, and where we can go from here.

According to City-Data.com The 2012 census tells us Ferguson is a town of approximately 21,135 people (no doubt a few less since the hostilities), the median age is 33.1 years, the mean of salaries was $36121, housing prices were right around $91808, and Blacks made up 64.9% of the population. As opposed to Whites being 30.6% of the population.

Add in other ethnic groups, of Hispanic, Asian, Indian, mixed (an odd designation, since few in America that would not apply to) and the total Colored population of Ferguson, is nearly 70% of that total population of 21,135 souls.

And yet a cursory glance of the news feeds coming out of Ferguson, shows a law enforcement that does not at all represent that population, does not represent that 70% of Blacks and Asians and Hispanic. Rather you see a heavily armored, virtually all White, armed response unit, prepped with the latest in federal government provided killing weaponry making a show of being ready to kill (ironically enough kill a colored population, with weapons paid for by the taxes of that same Colored population. Something wrong in that).

The news feeds and any calm examination of the facts show us Ferguson’s local Law enforcement as ,rather than an outgrowth and a part of the community… happily protecting and serving, instead an occupying army, a hostile, invasive minority trying to maintain an untenable power-base of master and slave, majority and minority. Watch the news and you see an American Palestine, an American Apartheid regime, local law enforcement as occupying armies, rather than integral peace-keepers.

And like Palestine and like South Africa, there is no way to reconcile that disparity of rule by the few. Therefore the roads open to America, the idea, and to us, the people, become few… but clear.

We can, all of us, nobly win, or meanly lose… our freedom. Lose it or win it in an embroiled conflict that will keep the mass of the population divided and wasted, fighting wars that were worthless and stupid when our grand fathers were young, while a few, laughing at these crabs in a barrel (Black, and White, and Yellow, and Red), shake their heads with mirth and win the only true war that matters… the class war. The war to define your life and to put their hands in your pocket while doing so.

So how do we win this 21st century war? First we have to learn how to fight it in a 21st century way. And that’s not by tossing rocks at tanks and helicopters and killer drones, and it is not by just marching, it’s by making a fiscal choice, have a fiscal cost.

Ferguson Government has staffed an all-White militarized police to in essence run rough shod over a mostly Black population that does most of the living and working and buying and selling and dying in Ferguson. Here’s the thing every one gets mastered, for better or worse, a society depends on codes of conduct, it depends on limitations of personal freedoms, it depends on sacrifice and responsibility, and it depends on heroes, and an understanding of right and wrong and holding that line. All of us either master and police ourselves, or we are mastered and policed.

The Black/colored population of Ferguson needs to use this incident as a wakeup call, to now put a new name up for mayor, a new name for chief of police (a step that I see, has been done by the Governor) a new name for city council. But it can’t stop there, if young people are going to be more than targets for the police, it is incumbent upon those with a sense of responsibility, to become the police for their neighborhoods; to be not an occupying army, but an integral part of maintaining the peace.

Until the person Ferguson residents call when they dial 911, is someone who respects and reflects them, bigoted and murdering police will continue to be the norm, rather than the exception.

And political and appointed offices do not live and run in a vacuum. Fiscal imperatives must drive people to do the right thing, must drive local police forces to demilitarize and be staffed by those from and representative of the neighborhoods.

The major banks in Ferguson are the UMB and U.S. Bancorp, so if you want to make people take notice of this outrage, you start there.

Get residents to close and pull all their accounts from the bank or bank that will not sign on for a petition requesting more diversity from Ferguson Law Enforcement. Same with the major schools or churches or department stores, any place where Black Dollars are consumed gladly, (which is most places), you petition them “show us you respect this population you make your money off of, sign this petition for more diversity, help us censor and change the Local Ferguson police and courts, or do without our dollars.”

Outrageous you say?

I would argue not.

We’re so removed from the age of strikes and civil disobedience, in our digital age, we forget, that the liberties most of us take for granted today, child labor laws, desegregation, 8 hour work day, were all won, not just by marching up and down meaninglessly, but were won by making bigotry and ignorance and evil… have a fiscal cost. It was won by making the cost of doing wrong, more trouble than the cost of doing right.

Ferguson, Missouri. Boycott any business that doesn’t employ people that look like you in significant positions. Create a petition, ask business to support it. Boycott the one’s that won’t. Boycott the targets, the kfcs, the mcdonalds, the walmarts, the libraries, the schools, the autoshops, the restaurants, the banks… and this doesn’t mean walk around carrying signs, you can do that if that’s your thing, but more importantly it means deny them your dollars, your patronage, YOUR RESPECT, and spread the word. The Montgomery Boycott was one of the most pivotal acts of fiscal reprisal, and we generations later are all benefiting from it.

Ferguson, it is now your turn to create your own fiscal reprisal. And by so doing, show the rest of America… the way.

The Invisible War

From Oscar(R)- and Emmy(R)-nominated filmmaker Kirby Dick (This Film Is Not Yet Rated; Twist of Faith) comes The Invisible War, a groundbreaking investigative documentary about one of America’s most shameful and best kept secrets: the epidemic of rape within the U.S. military. The film paints a startling picture of the extent of the problem–today, a female soldier in combat zones is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire. The Department of Defense estimates there were a staggering 19,000 violent sex crimes in the military in 2010. Twenty percent of all active-duty female soldiers are sexually assaulted. The Invisible War exposes the epidemic, breaking open one of the most under-reported stories of our generation, to the nation and the world.–from the filmmakers

Well that… troubles me, to put it lightly.

It does not however surprise me.

Unfortunately given the rash of atrocities associated with our military, particularly in the last dozen years, the tale THE INVISIBLE WAR has to tell while infuriating, is not surprising.

I have to think it has a lot to do with that rash of news stories about the military being in dire need of soldiers, and filling their ranks by any and all methods; some extremely suspect.

Here’s the thing, for every person who is in the military for the right reason and to do the right thing, you have three people who… in no manner, no way, and for no reason, should have passed the screening process and been given a gun, and put in a position to control others, much less in a position to end lives.

At the best of times, and to the best of people, such responsibility… is to be watched.

But seemingly, no one is watching anymore. So we end up with a rash of incidents about people who cannot even control themselves, being given a gun and sent all over the globe to control people and cultures that were old when America was but a dream. And doing it badly.

Again not all our soldiers, hopefully not the majority, but enough. Enough bad apples to spoil the pie.

And this isn’t just about our military over there. This is about our police force, and our prison guards here. This is about a culture of oppression and the cost we all pay for turning a blind eye to a police/slave state… it is about rule by terror. And the thing about terror, it doesn’t respect boundaries real well.

There’s no way to sow terror and horror, without reaping it. Without breathing it in. And when the mandate from the top, to this immature and often volatile young world police force is to, still, spread shock and awe… the results as we have seen, are not pretty.

When in our name, soldiers are given authority to terrorize and devalue the other with impunity, you get American torture prisons, you get American concentration camps, and eventually you get that behavior coming home to roost. You get the abhorrent methods used to pacify the resistance of those we disagree with abroad, brought home… to be used against those we disagree with here.

It becomes our method for relating to everything, and everyone. Even our own. Barbarism as national policy.

And maybe it’s even simpler than that. Maybe it’s an American male population that instead of being raised on movies about saving damsels in distress and opening doors for ladies, finds entertainment in movies and video games about women getting raped and tortured and killed. The truth is… we do not rise above our fictions, we become them. The fifties dreamt of space and the sixties saw us achieve it. In the last two decades the mass media of America has been about fear and terror and torture and mistrust, and we are living up… to those dreams.

Maybe in the mad rush to devalue the other, all we have done is learned to laughingly… devalue ourselves.

I don’t have the answers. But we better damn sure start looking for them. And it begins with asking the hard questions. Is our military doing right? If so, how? And if not, how? And what can we do, to make our soldiers not victims nor puppets nor fall-guys for an administration of madmen?

These are questions, especially as yet another election devoid of any real choice (you can pick corporate meat puppet 1 or corporate meat puppet 2) approaches, that we have to ask and answer.

Because the security and rights of anyone in this country, any soldier, any woman, any person, is tied directly to the amount of security we give even the least of us.

Our liberties as citizens are only as secure as the liberties of those we disagree with. is tied to how we treat enemy combatants, prisoners, foes (which as history teaches us, will be our governments friends tomorrow. Never hate for your government, because to your government it is all just a game of dollars and cents). Because the lines we cross cannot be easily uncrossed, and the human rights we ultimately eradicate when we violate the other… are our own.

Go see the trailer here, and see what questions and what answers you come up with.

Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.

I’m listening to old 70s Soul Cinema trailer clips, and they are cracking me up. The best? This little tag line from Fred Williamson’s BLACK CAESAR…

“This Caesar comes to bury you!”— How Frigging cool is that!I have to pick up that movie on DVD and watch it now.🙂

God rest ye merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay.
Remember Christ our savior
was born on Christmas day.
To save us all from Satan’s power
when we were gone astray.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,
comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.

The odd thing I find about Christmas, and this supposedly benevolent time of year, one of them, is it is typically the time America ramps up her military strikes against non-christian countries.

I sadistically jest, but the truth is that sadistic without any jesting involved.

From God, our heavenly father,
A blessed angel came.
And unto certain shepherds,
Brought tidings of the same.
How that in Bethlehem was born,
The son of God by name.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,
comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.

I want to highly recommend a book I had mentioned picking up previously, DIGGING:THE AFRO-AMERICAN SOUL OF AMERICAN CLASSICAL MUSIC by Amiri Baraka.

A compilation of essays covering several decades of this uniquely American art form of Jazz/Blues as only an insider can, it is not only a seminal dissection of the times and the players in the music scene, it is as brilliant a dissection of America the American id and American fallacies as I’ve ever read.

It is an essential book, and is easily my recommended read of 2009.

It is a book on the masters of the medium, Trane, Coleman, Miles, the list goes on, told by someone who knew and played and laughed with them.

It is a book told with an authority, validity by one of not just the world’s preeminent poets but one of the world’s preeminent music lovers, and you’re NEVER going to get that again, EVER. By anyone.

Because those pioneers are all shuffled off this mortal coil, and what is left is the vultures to retrofit their memories and their music. The vultures who would paint Black Gods white.

We are now deep in the age of Sony and Time Warner and American Idol and corporate bs as the end all and be all of music.

Deep in the age of the tail wagging the people.

So the discussion DIGGING engages in, of the music as the gestalt, and the natural by product of the fears, the hopes, the politics, the loves, the controversies, and most of all as a chronicler from an abused mass of Americans not allowed to be Americans, this understanding of music as a call and a component in change, you are NEVER going to see presented from this capitalist controlled society again.

Music to them. the suits, is either a way to sell you something or to divert you from something, but never a way to engage you in something constructive or progressive or enlightening.

So DIGGING, written by this eight decade old LIVER and SURVIVOR and SHAPER of the most turbulent of American Years, I see as absolutely a historic document from day one, and an essential component to understanding what music was, and what it can be again.

You’re looking for a gift to give that music lover in your life? This is the book you give them. His list of recommended CDs alone is worth the price of the book!! I’ve tried some of his recommendations and they are dead on. Highest Recommendation.

“Jazz is the music of Americans who were not allowed to be American.”

To save us all from Satan’s power
When we were gone astray.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.

I’ve followed the recent rash of removals of Black Mayors, from offices throughout the country, for the most trumped up nonsense with some interest. It is very Jim Crow like, and in the age of Black Newspapers and Black Radio Stations and even Black owned theaters… we would have called this convenient confluence of events what is it… a witch hunt, and a power grab, and a turning back the clock.

We would have called it clearly… injustice, and undemocratic, this usurping of the duly elected representatives of the people, by legal maneuverings of a very few people.

But we no longer live in an age of Black owned anything. Brown vs. Board of Education led the way to that.

Brown vs. BOE while a good case in the micro-level, on the macro-level can clearly be seen for what it is, a defeat cloaked as a victory. Zora Neale Hurston said this decades ago, and she was derided for it by everyone, Blacks as well as Whites.

She ended up dying a broken woman. But she was right, and no one has ever been more right.

“Our victories give them weapons they did not have before”

Separate but Equal, there is nothing wrong with that concept. The problem was the practice. America was never Separate AND Equal. It was alway seperate AND UNEQUAL. Inferior service, inferior representation, inferior choices.

And BROWN vs BOARD rather than treat the root cause of the problem, unequal and unjust allocation of dollars and resources, instead became a model for even more unequal allocation/distribution of resources.

That leads to our present atmosphere of disenfranchised people, devoid of real recourse or representation. With representatives picked off one by one, with not even a real Black owned paper or radio station left .

And you may be saying, I’m not Black why should I care?

You should care because

“what you do to the least, you do to to me”

or

“They came first for the Jews, but I wasn’t a Jew so I said nothing”

or

Because ultimately the crimes they, the robber barons of this… trifling age, get away with in Haiti or Iraq or Palestine or Philadelphia today, they are ultimately perfecting to try on you tomorrow.

Because while I’m fond of terms like Black and White, the truth is that this is a class struggle, between those who want to be, once again, their fathers’ sons and be the masters of men. And they will not let color deter them from your fall. They want the mass of men as slaves or serfs, and each peoples’ fall, from Liberia to Haiti to Iraq to Palestine brings them a step closer… to preparing your fall.

They are greasing America to fail, the agents of Oligarchy, they hope to put to bed, at last, even the lie of liberty.

So that the people, frustrated with services closing, taxes rising, food and water unsafe, quality health unaffordable, cost of living escalating, fear and crime their only constant food, and hunger and pestilence and perversion and death in the air, and America made into Gomorrah… so the people, frustrated, will be ready at last for their nation’s march to terror and totalitarianism.

Will be ready, at last, for America’s fall.

Mistakenly blaming their liberty for their pains, when it was not liberty that failed them, but they that failed their liberty by not killing the leaders that led them to such mire and such madness.

So remember this… rambling of mine from the edge… the next time you hear of a suspicious removal of an elected representative, or of an odd arrest, or a case tried in the press/tv, as many increasingly are.

Because with every broadcast, you are being manipulated closer to that day of your own dark Reich.

Ohhhh,
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.

Support This Blog and Purchase Great Items!? Tell me How!

One of the most popular (AND LONGEST) blog postings, the review of the BEST Sherlock Holmes movie, Jeremy Brett's ELIGIBLE BACHELOR. THE FULL version (over 12 pgs) now available in E-reader/Tablet or PDF format! Only $4.99 for a GREAT article and to support this blog!
Click Below to Purchase. :).